The Oatmeal writes: Operation BearLove Good, Cancer Bad ended early this morning with total funds raised at $220,024.00 — almost exactly 11 times the original goal of $20k. IndieGoGo takes 4%, so that puts thetotal money going to charity at $211,223.04. I’ve been trying very hard not to post ab...

If you get the time, do a blog post on what you think of the new Ubuntu. I just switched from 10.04 to 12.04. There were a few hiccups, but everything is running really well. So give it a whirl and post your thoughts.

I frequently find myself in an unpopular position in the entertainment industry: I believe in network neutrality, I don't believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don't believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don't believe ...

As a cake-eating, non-vet civilian, let me first start by saying "Thank you" to all you vets.
Second, I will be taking a vet out to lunch today. I can even make sure the vet I'm taking to lunch gets to-kill-yatequila.
Finally, I will make my annual pilgrimage to Arlington Natl Cemetery where I will pay my respects to another vet interred there. This last vet was a mentor to me and the reason I chose the particular specialty within engineering that I did.
No, none of this is "work", but I hope it helps.
P.S. If any of the Westboro BC assclowns are around Arlington, I'll give them a big Blackfive "Howdy" as I pass by...

"A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards." - Theodore Roosevelt Again this year (sort of a Veterans Day tradition), I wanted to offer up my favorite Veterans Day article from the late, great Mike Royko (1932 - 1997) who penn...

Since the WikiWankers are back at it again. we need some kind of response. The Wash Times has what seems like a perfectly logical way to play ball with our self-appointed enemies. The government also should be waging war on the Wikileaks Web presence. There are a variety of means whereby technic...

Speaking as a geek, the reason that asshat Assange is allowed to be an asshat is that he got the information. I'd prefer to pour all of our resources into ensuring that he never, ever gets information such as this again. I'd prefer that we use our supreme geekery to find a solution that makes it much more difficult for people to walk out with our information. On the social engineering side of things, I'd want to see whoever gave ASSange the information find their way into a dank, dark cell. ("Hi! Welcome to hell! I'm your new cellmate, Rufus T. Buttlove, and I'll be calling you 'bitch'!") Deny Assange such information and he winds up with no power, curled up in the fetal position of some men's room furiously (and fruitlessly) banging on the stall wall screaming, "Somebody love me!"

Since the WikiWankers are back at it again. we need some kind of response. The Wash Times has what seems like a perfectly logical way to play ball with our self-appointed enemies. The government also should be waging war on the Wikileaks Web presence. There are a variety of means whereby technic...

I cannot top the comment posted on jalopnik.com by "Prismatist who steers with his right foot". That comment was:
Best line:
"Ok chaps just to let you know I took a round through my front windscreen which came up and hit me on the head."
Pure Britishness there folks.
For our American viewers, that can be translated as:
"F###!F###!F###!F###!F###!F###!F###!F###!!!!!! That bastard MOTHERF###ER shot me in the F###ING HEAD!!!!F###!F###!"
The pilot is now receiving medical treatment and a spot of tea.

The Central Limit Theorem says that if you take any probability distribution and add them together, they will always wind up being a Gaussian distribution. Considering that a die roll is as close to a uniform distribution as one can get, one could either use one die and roll it over and over again, creating the probability density function as you go. OR one could roll THOUSANDS of dice (try to use the same type, such as 4- or 10-sided, for the roll) at the same time to get a better idea of the distribution.
Just a thought. And would make a wonderful convincing argument for the theorem. It's what Sheldon Cooper would do.

Just before I went out to GenCon in August, I wrote: I have one request, which I hope isn't unreasonable: I'd like to test the theory that you can't have too many dice. If I see you at GenCon, would you give me one gaming die? I'll bring home as many as I get, dump them all on my office floor, ...

First, I had a problem with the link, but I found it here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1296136/As-Gurkha-disciplined-beheading-Taliban-Thank-God-side.html
Second, the guy was already dead. As others have pointed out, this cannot in any way, shape or form be compared to the Taliban beheadings. (I know that the David Green's of the world will do so, anyway.)
Finally, if you read the article, you'll find the money quote at the very end: "So, ask yourself this. Now that the story of the head-hunting Gurkha of Babaji has gone global, do you think that the insurgents of the world will be more inclined or less inclined to pick a fight with the British Army?
Amen, brother. Amen.

That is my takeaway from this tale, although unsurprisingly the authorities have a more horrified view. Just picture the scene as a soldier returns from hunting an arch-enemy. Commanding officer: 'Did you get him?' Soldier: 'Yes, sir.' Commanding officer: 'Are you sure?' Soldier: 'Yes, sir.' S...

Last year Anne and I raised some money for the Pasadena Humane Society in memory of our awesome dog, Ferris. When I wrote about it here, Anne said: Just over 8 years ago, I made a right turn instead of a left out of the Home Depot parking lot. That was a turn that would change our lives forev...

I did a quick bit of searching. This guy is a Jewish-hatin', America-hatin' Jewish-American. He's written articles for Counterpunch (The Holocaust Industry Comes to the University of Illinois) and the "Israel Lobby Watch" (whatever that is... Propaganda disguised as academic inquiry at the University of Illinois). If you read through the Counterpunch article, you'll find this bit of baiting:Actually, Finkelstein makes it quite clear that the "physical dimension" (memorials, museums) of the Holocaust that serves current ideological demands need to be reduced, while we expand the moral dimensions of the Nazi holocaust; that is, one genocide among many that characterized the 20th century as a result of primarily European and American imperialism, militarism, and racism.
You catch that? Even WWII was our fault!
Finally, no, this guy may technically be a part of the University of Illinois, but he's not a professor or teacher of any kind. If he was, I would have been able to find his curriculum vitae (which is a high-falutin', academic-way of saying "resume"), which I've not been able to do. So, this asshole is a pot stirrer. Nothing more. Enough of that. I need a shower.

This guy is beautiful. He is a perfect caricature of all the morally-superior (in their minds) left wing buttheads who make our universities such jokes. The vast majority of 9/11 observances in this country cannot be seen as politically neutral events. Implicit in their nature are the notions t...

I didn't have to look at the weather forecast to know that a storm is on the way; I could feel it with the first step I took outside this morning with my dog. As I stood on my patio and watched the steam rise off my coffee and swirl up through golden shafts of golden morning sunlight shot throug...

UPDATE: Okay, I didn't know that you could see the image up to a very large size. Now that I've figured that out, I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong, Wil) that it is a Casio fx-260 solar Fraction calculator.

"Hi, Gilbert. I'm a nerd too. I just found that out tonight. We have news for the beautiful people. There's a lot more of us then there are of you. I know there's alumni here tonight. When you went to Adams you might've been called a spazz, or a dork, or a geek. Any of you that have ever fel...

"Hi, Gilbert. I'm a nerd too. I just found that out tonight. We have news for the beautiful people. There's a lot more of us then there are of you. I know there's alumni here tonight. When you went to Adams you might've been called a spazz, or a dork, or a geek. Any of you that have ever fel...

"If you get through this without tearing up a bit, you're a better person than I am."
Afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. If you can watch this without tearing up, I'm not certain you're a good person at all.

Georgia recently sent elements of its 48th BCT to Afghanistan. Within 3 weeks 3 of their warriors were killed by an IED explosion. The following video is simply magnificent. It's 12 minutes long, but it makes an incredible point - the people of America love and honor their warriors and apprecia...

During my initial brief to new soldiers I explain that I'm pretty laid back and easy to work for except when I get mad. There are several things that will get me mad, making the same stupid mistake three times, putting a fellow soldier's life in danger, or telling me a lie will cause me to loos...